Abstract
Objectives
Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (QTNV) are very uncomfortable symptoms for patients with cancer, which can be circumvented in most of them with drug combinations containing serotonin receptor antagonists (5-HT3 receptor antagonists) such as granisetron. In an attempt to decrease costs of QTNV prophylaxis, we studied a lower dose regimen of granisetron.
Patients and methods
Sixty patients with cancer scheduled to receive moderately/highly emetogenic chemotherapy were pretreated 1 h before with 0.5 mg granisetron p.o. combined with dexamethasone 20 mg i.v.
Results
We observed complete control for nausea, vomiting, and nausea and vomiting in 78% [95% confidence interval (CI), 67–89%], 61% (95% CI, 47.5–74.5%), and 58% (95% CI, 44.3–71.7%) of the patients, respectively. This regimen was very well tolerated; headache (35%), xerostomia (11%), and constipation (5%) were the most frequent adverse symptoms reported.
Conclusions
The regimen with lower dose granisetron is effective for acute QTNV prophylaxis and offers a cheaper alternative for QTNV control. We feel that these encouraging results should be confirmed in a randomized comparative trial.
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Moreno, J., Sahade, M. & del Giglio, A. Low-dose granisetron for prophylaxis of acute chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting: a pilot study. Support Care Cancer 13, 850–853 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-005-0817-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-005-0817-4